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Rob Ford’s Toronto: where the buck doesn’t stop

If Ukrainians can protest their leader in weather even colder than Toronto’s, why are Torontonians content to let Rob Ford be mayor?

What really shocks Jeffrey Kofman, a former Torontonian now living in London, England, is why Toronto continues to put up with Mayor Rob Ford's inept leadership. (Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Jeffrey Kofman

Sun., Feb. 16, 2014

I have one question for the people of Toronto: Why is Rob Ford still your mayor?

I really should phrase that “our” mayor. I haven’t lived in Toronto for 17 years but the city is still home to me and occupies a huge place in my heart. This is why I have shared in the collective cringe of Torontonians over the last year as the world laughed at each outrageous twist and sleazy turn as the Ford drug saga ricocheted around the globe.

As shocking as Ford’s behaviour is, what really shocks me from afar is that no one in Toronto is taking ownership of what is a serious crisis of leadership.

Ford sure doesn’t. He thinks that all can be forgiven and forgotten with a perfunctory “I have made mistakes and all I can do right now is apologize for the mistakes.”

Actually, that’s not all he can do.

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I was reminded of that last weekend as I read the morning papers here in London. On the front pages was the story of Britain’s immigration minister, a guy named Mark Harper (presumably no relation to Canada’s prime minister). The British Harper has been championing tough immigration reform. On Friday he resigned from the cabinet of Prime Minister David Cameron. Why? Because although he had previously checked her papers, he discovered that his cleaning woman had shown him fake documents and was living in Britain illegally.

Here’s the line that made me think of Rob Ford:

“Although I complied with the law at all times,” wrote Harper in his resignation letter, “I should hold myself to a higher standard than expected of others.”

There’s an original idea. A politician who understands that leadership is about setting examples.

Harper’s misstep seems laughingly trivial compared with Ford’s lies about drug-taking, admission of drug-taking, lies about drinking, admissions about drinking, his vulgar comments about his wife and, well, you know the rest of the list.

Yet Rob Ford believes all can be forgiven by saying “I’m only human.” What he really should say is “I’m only a drug-addled, alcoholic human bully.”

It is clear by now that Ford’s moral GPS does not include directions to the high road.

Which brings me to my next question: if Ford won’t resign, why is there no movement to get rid of him?

I get the sense that there’s a collective wince of embarrassment about Ford in Toronto, followed by a shrug.

If the citizens of Ukraine can take to the streets of Kyiv to protest their leader in weather even colder than Toronto’s, why are Torontonians content to sit on their hands?

Premier Kathleen Wynne said last November she would consider changing provincial laws relating to the conduct of municipal officials if Toronto City Council asked her to — and if provincial opposition leaders agreed. She might have added that she needed Santa Claus to sign off on the plan, too.

It is also hard from afar to understand how such an extensive police investigation of Ford has left him laughing. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one struck by the comments of a sheriff in Florida who arrested a local mayor on drug charges, saying “This isn’t Toronto.” Asked about Toronto’s mayor, Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith said his advice to Ford would be, “Be a man and do the right thing.”

Good luck with that.

And so while the newly sober Rob Ford goes drinking in British Columbia and gives the world another reason to laugh at Toronto’s paralysis, the city is being rebranded. What for so many years was known as “Toronto the Good” is now the place that can proudly declare “The Buck Doesn’t Stop Here.”

Jeffrey Kofman is a journalist in London, England. He is from Toronto and worked for the CBC, CBS News and ABC News.

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